1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to electrical control of a reactive load, and more particularly to high speed, low loss control of a piezoelectric actuator or other electromechanical positioning device.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
A piezoelectric linear actuator is a nano-positioning device that deforms its shape in response to a stimulus of electrical charge. Piezoelectric actuators are used to operate mechanical valves that regulate the flow of materials in such diverse applications as automobile fuel injectors, hydraulic servovalves, and ink jet printer nozzles. Piezoelectric linear actuators are particularly well suited for use in mass flow controller products, such as those employed in connection with plasma processing equipment, because the actuators can be operated for billions of cycles with virtually no loss in performance. Compared to other electromechanical actuators such as solenoids or stepper motors of comparable size and cost, piezoelectric actuators are capable of providing significantly greater actuating forces per unit of input energy provided, along with exceptional positional accuracy.
In gas delivery applications, particularly those involving high-speed processes, the time required to actuate a control valve can directly affect the performance of a mass flow controller. A typical mass flow controller product stimulates a piezoelectric actuator by transferring charge from a power source to the actuator load using a first-order circuit arrangement. In this approach, a resistive element controls the peak current value (i.e., initial charge transfer) into the capacitive actuator load and participates in an exponential decay rate time constant. The current waveform resulting from a first-order drive circuit is an initially large peak current, followed by a long exponential decay period during which most of the charge is transferred to the actuator. Charge transfer rate can be increased by increasing the peak current. The speed of charge transfer is limited, however, by peak current stresses placed on the internal bond wires connecting the drive circuit to the piezoelectric actuator, as well as by practical considerations of the cost, size, and electrical isolation of high-current switches and other components. As a result, contemporary mass flow controller devices tend to have relatively slow actuation times on the order of several hundred milliseconds. For many process applications, these actuation times impose an undesirable lower limit on the open time of the flow path, or upper limit on the repetition rate at which the controller may be operated.
The amount of electrical power consumed and dissipated by a mass flow controller may also limit its suitability for many process applications. In stimulating a piezoelectric actuator with a first-order drive circuit, half of the energy provided by the power source is always dissipated in the series resistive element. Moreover, the energy used to charge the piezoelectric actuator is typically not recovered, thus requiring dissipation of that stored energy when the actuator is discharged. As a result, power consumption and dissipation needs of a high-speed mass flow controller may become unacceptably high in a system environment where power and heat sinking resources are allocated sparingly.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,320,297 describes a circuit for controlling a piezoelectric actuator with reduced electrical losses. The capacitive actuator load is charged from a capacitor bank through a load switch and a series reactance coil. To discharge the actuator, a discharge switch is closed, causing reverse current to flow from the actuator through the reactance coil. When the actuator voltage has dropped to the residual voltage of the capacitor bank, a residual discharge switch is closed, causing additional reverse current to flow in the reactance coil. The residual discharge switch must then be opened at the moment when the current in the reactance coil is at a maximum in order to release the residual energy previously stored in the actuator load back into the capacitor bank.
As an alternative to in-line mass flow control, a mass flow diverter may be employed in applications requiring higher speed control of minute feed gas quantities. In this approach, a pneumatically actuated valve is located on a gas stream conduit venting continuously from a source. To inject a quantity of gas into a process, the valve is driven rapidly to a position that diverts the stream into the process environment, and then returned rapidly to the venting position. Use of high-speed pneumatics to drive the diverter valve allows for short actuation times, on the order of tens of milliseconds, and therefore greater control over the delivered gas quantity. In addition to the added cost and complexity of this approach, however, a significant disadvantage is that the vented material often cannot be recovered due to contamination concerns. For many processes, particular in the manufacture of semiconductor devices, this can result in significant waste of expensive feed gas materials along with an attendant need for scrubbing or abating greater quantities of the gases downstream of the process.
It would be desirable to provide circuitry capable of rapidly actuating a piezoelectric or other reactive load without driving excessively large peak currents through the elements and connections of the circuitry. It would be further desirable to provide for rapid actuation of a reactive load while minimizing input power and heat sinking requirements. It would be further desirable to provide for partial actuation of a reactive load, such as a positioning device, in order to achieve incremental positioning of the load.